A Country of Immigrants Should Know How to Integrate Them

Canada should have gotten it right by now. A 146-year-old country of immigrants should know how to integrate them. The recent census data however suggests that not to be the case.

While Canadians celebrated the 146th birthday of their country, many recent immigrants, however, had little to celebrate in their adopted homeland where their unemployment rate was 75 per cent higher than that of the native-born Canadians.

Last week Statistics Canada released further details from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). The data focusing on labour outcomes paints a dismal picture for many immigrant groups, especially those who are considered a visible minority, a term referring to the people who visibly do not belong to the majority race. For the would-be immigrants, the grass appears greener in Canada.

The labour force statistics from the NHS reveal the uneven geography of labour force outcomes for various ethnic groups. More than one in four working-age Arab, who migrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011, was unemployed. During the same time-period, one in seven South Asian emigrants was also unemployed.

The recent immigrants are most likely to experience adverse labour force outcomes, such as un- or under-employment. This is primarily a result of moving to a new place where one does not have networks, one is unfamiliar with the system, and one's credentials are either not recognized at all or are not recognized fast enough for one to have a career in one's chosen field. The result of these limitations is that recent immigrants end up working odd jobs, trying to make ends meet. Eventually they should be able to address these limitations and improve their employment prospects. For South Asian emigrants this happens to be the case in Canada.

The unemployment rate of recent immigrants from South Asia, i.e., those who arrived between 2006 and 2011, was 14.9 per cent in 2011. At 10.9 per cent, it was slightly lower for those who arrived between 2001 and 2005. Similarly for South Asians who landed in the '90s, the unemployment rate was even lower at 9.2 per cent.

The above figures offer proof for the assimilation affect in labour market for immigrants. The longer the immigrants stay in the adopted homeland, the more knowledgeable they become of the rules and customs, and more likely they are to succeed in the labour markets.

Despite the assimilation effect, immigrants classified as visible minorities continue to have larger unemployment rates than non-visible minority migrants. Consider that while 5.9 per cent of those South Asians emigrants who arrived in Canada before 1981 were unemployed, only 5.1 per cent of the non-visible minority immigrants were unemployed for the same time period. The difference in unemployment rates between visible and non-visible minorities has widened over the years in Canada.

According to the NHS, the unemployment rates of immigrants did vary significantly across Canada in 2011. The worst employment markets for immigrants were in Quebec. Consider Montreal, Quebec's largest city, where the unemployment rate for South Asian emigrants was recorded at 14.6 per cent. On the other hand, the most favourable employment markets for South Asians were in the oil rich Alberta province. In Edmonton, Alberta's second most populous city, the unemployment rate for South Asian emigrants was much lower at 5.9 per cent in 2011. And while the unemployment rate for Arab emigrants was over 16 per cent in Quebec, it was around 9.5 per cent in Alberta.

Education does play a role in securing better employment prospects for immigrants in Canada. Immigrants with an earned doctorate or Masters degree, for instance, had an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent and 7.2 per cent respectively. However, the unemployment rate for similarly educated non-immigrants in Canada was significantly lower. The non-migrants with an earned doctorate degree in Canada had an unemployment rate of 2.9 per cent, suggesting that highly educated immigrants, such as PhDs, had a 79 per cent higher unemployment rate than non-migrants with similar credentials. Even worse, one in 10 recent immigrants with a PhD who arrived in Canada between 2006 and 2011 was unemployed.

The Canadian data suggests that while the immigrants are able to improve their prospects over time in their adopted homelands, the initial years of struggle are always painful. Furthermore, immigrants are seldom able to plug the wage gap with the native-born, irrespective of their education and skills.

Migration is never an easy decision. However, as professionals chart out plans to migrate to foreign lands, they should know that the grass is always greener on the other side of the border.

CP — Statistics Canada released the first tranche of results Wednesday from the 2011 voluntary National Household Survey, which replaced the cancelled mandatory long-form census.
The survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census cancelled by the Harper Conservatives in 2010, is filled with warnings that the data may not be as accurate, given the survey's voluntary nature.
HIGHLIGHTS:

Canada was home to an estimated 6,775,800 immigrants in 2011, comprising 20.6 per cent of the population — more than ever before and the highest proportion of all G8 countries.

Canada's aboriginal population grew by 20.1 per cent — 232,385 people — between 2006 and 2011, compared with 5.2 per cent for non-aboriginal people.
1,400,685 people identified themselves as aboriginal in 2011, representing 4.3 per cent of the Canadian population. Aboriginal Peoples accounted for 3.8 per cent of the population in 2006, 3.3 per cent in 2001 and 2.8 per cent in 1996.

Almost half (48.1 per cent) of all children aged 14 and under in foster care in Canada in 2011 were aboriginal children.

Aboriginal children aged 14 and under made up 28 per cent of Canada's total aboriginal population, while their non-aboriginal counterparts represented 16.5 per cent of all non-aboriginals.

Only 17.2 per cent of aboriginals reported being able to conduct a conversation in an aboriginal language, compared with 21 per cent in the 2006 census.

About 1,162,900 foreign-born people immigrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011, making up 17.2 per cent of the foreign-born population and 3.5 per cent of Canada's total population.

More than 200 different ethnic origins were reported in the 2011 survey, with 13 of them representing more than a million people each.

Nearly 6,264,800 people identified themselves as a visible minority, representing 19.1 per cent of the population. 65 per cent of them were born outside Canada.

South Asians, Chinese and blacks accounted for 61.3 per cent of the visible minority population, followed by Filipinos, Latin Americans, Arabs, Southeast Asians, West Asians, Koreans and Japanese.

More than 22.1 million people — two-thirds of Canadians — said they were affiliated with a Christian religion, including 12.7 million Roman Catholics, the largest single group.

7.8 million people, 23.9 per cent of the population, reported having no religious affiliation.

Slightly more than one million people, or 3.2 per cent of the population, identified themselves as Muslim, while Hindus represented 1.5 per cent, Sikhs 1.4 per cent, Buddhists 1.1 per cent and Jews one per cent.

Here are some highlights from the 2011 Canadian Census.
With files from The Canadian Press. (AFP/Getty Images)

As of May 2011, 33,476,688 people were enumerated in Canada, nearly twice as many as in 1961 and 10 times the number in 1861. (Alamy)

Canada's population grew by 5.9 per cent between 2006 and 2011, up slightly from 5.4 per cent during the previous five years. (Flickr: jtbradford)

For the first time, more people in Canada live west of Ontario (30.7 per cent) than in Quebec and Atlantic Canada combined (30.6 per cent). (Flickr: derekGavey)

Canada's population growth between 2006 and 2011 was the highest among G8 countries. (Flickr: WarmSleepy)

Every province and most territories saw their population increase between 2006 and 2011; the rate of growth increased everywhere except in Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. (AP)

The growth rate in Ontario declined to 5.7 per cent, its lowest level since the early 1980s. (Alamy)

Population growth in Saskatchewan hit 6.7 per cent, compared with a negative growth rate of 1.1 per cent between 2001 and 2006; the province welcomed more than 28,000 immigrants during the latest census period, nearly three times the number of the previous five-year period. (Flickr: Just a Prairie Boy)

The rate of growth in both Yukon (11.6 per cent) and Manitoba (5.2 per cent) has doubled since 2006. (Flickr: US Mission Canada)

The rate of growth in Prince Edward Island (3.2 per cent), New Brunswick (2.9 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador (1.8 per cent) has increased substantially between 2006 and 2011. (Flickr JaimeW)

Nearly seven of every 10 Canadians lived in one of Canada's 33 main urban centres in 2011. (Flickr mark.woodbury)

The rate of population growth in almost all census metropolitan areas located in Ontario slowed between 2006 and 2011. (Flickr abdallahh)

Of the 15 Canadian communities with the highest rates of growth, 10 were located in Alberta. (AFP/Getty Images)